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space and time bend

#1. humid and beautiful go hand in hand. [i’m sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that i’m starting by addressing the weather/scenery] it was so. freakin’. humid. i totally forgot what it was like to drink your oxygen, to have palpable air enveloping you all day and all night. the good news is that i still love it. it made my hair, skin, and brain happy.

everything was green, the day was overcast, and we were next to water. i really don’t see how any place could be more perfect.

we took a tour in a rickety horse-drawn wagon around the city and it felt a little unlike real life. i just sank into a motionless silence, inhaling warm, earthy air, staring at the cozy dark sky and listening to the clicking of horse hooves on gravel [one of my favorite sounds ever. weird, i know] and completely tuning out the amplified tour guides’ voice droning on with facts about old things and old people.

it was about the end of this tour when i realized that i did NOT feel good. turns out i am allergic to nauvoo [or maybe just all the mormons that were there]. all i wanted to do for the rest of the day was eat and sleep.

which brings me to adjective #3: fattening. the main street of the town was comprised entirely of family owned buffets—that and only that. which meant that every meal was a buffet. we’d eat breakfast [approximately our caloric intake for the day], venture out, eat another day’s worth of food for lunch, and then roll ourselves back to the hotel for afternoon naps. i did a lot of reading, a lot of allergy-pill-taking, and a lot of sleeping. again—completely my ideal vacation.

bloodshot eyes: all the rage these days.

#3: isolated.

not only is nauvoo physically isolated from the real world [several miles from the nearest city and spotty cell reception], but it was also very um...focused on the past. i learned a million things i will never need to know about candle dipping, horse shoe making, and the process of welding.

kick-a ring made from a nail: also all the rage these days

but as with every trip, it’s not about where you are—it’s about who you’re with. and i was with some pretty great people:

deidra and jim are THE funniest people i know, and let me tell you: when you’re in a city plagued with too many mormons, parades of bagpiping kilt-wearers, toxically chlorinated pools, five-heads-instead-of-foreheads, and gay ribbon unfurlers, you need to have someone funny with you. it also helps that every time i talk to deidra i feel reassured about myself and my life—all my psychotic tendencies and crazy life dreams and unsettled, unresolved worries—it all seems normal and okay.

our last night there we watched the sun set and sat though some plays and laughed and had snow cones and dodged real life zombies like it was nobody’s business.

and that, friends, is nauvoo. books, food, mormons, and allergies. would i ever go back? probably not. would i go anywhere in the world if it was with these people? absolutely.